What to raven tattoos mean?

Answer 1

1. It's the devil mark and it means the devil is watching you
2. Come from Celtic myth of the collector of fall soles in battle

If you're looking for raven symbolism pertaining to ill omen, death or other gruesome turns of thought, look elsewhere. There are plenty sources to feed macabre minds, and malign the raven.

A lot of negative raven symbolism comes about from their appearance on battlefields. They are scavengers (and curious to a fault), and are often seen picking at mangled remains of fallen warriors on battle grounds.

Spans of massacred bodies and gore besieged with glimmery black ravens with chiseled beaks driving coldly into the bloody mire can conjure some nightmarish connotations. I'm betting a lot of the darker raven symbolism came from these eerie appearances at sites with massive death tolls.

This is underscored by the raven's placement in Celtic animal symbolism because it is a bird closely connected with battle and the Celtic goddess Morrigan, who was a remarkable prophetess (connecting oracle themes with the raven).

Ravens are humanitarians in Native American symbolic legends too. In fact, the raven was a hero to many tribes. The Inuit for example believed the raven tricked a giant sea monster into submission, and to this day its body serves as the Alaskan mainland.

Other Native North American tribes saw the raven as the bringer of light. In fact, southwestern tribes (Hopi, Navajo, Zuni) felt the raven was flew out from the dark womb of the cosmos, and with it brought the light of the sun (dawning of understanding). Consequently, the raven is considered a venerated bird of creation, for without the raven, humans would forever live in darkness. I've written more about the symbolic meaning of raven from a Native American perspective here.